


Dead or Alive

by love2imagine



Category: White Collar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 10:03:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3806368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love2imagine/pseuds/love2imagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after Season 6. Follows up the lives of some of our friends...including those mentioned. Trying to answer some unanswered questions from canon.</p><p>White Collar characters created by Jeff Eastin, and belong to him. They do not belong to me. Story mine, mistakes mine.</p><p> </p><p>In honour of James Rebhorn. We miss you, Sir! Enjoy yourself!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead or Alive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ayam and Ethel09](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ayam+and+Ethel09).



 

 

 

Reese Hughes sat on the edge of his bed. It took him longer each morning, it seemed, to get going: his joints were a little stiffer, it seemed, each morning, a little colder.

 

The hot water helped: he shaved, glancing up into his own blue eyes, still hawk-like and keen above that blade of a nose he hated, but which certainly gave his face character. His body might be aging, but – at least it seemed so to himself, if that was in any way a reliable adjudicator – his mind was still sharp.

 

He made his little tour of the cabin. He liked the smooth snow lying all around, it gave away anyone who might have approached the cabin during the night, and the frigid temperatures made thermal imagery of a person skulking stand out nicely, even with layers of clothing.

 

 _It often seems a pointless exercise in survival_ , he admitted to himself. He wasn’t able to piece together anything substantive about the corruption that had pushed him out of his office and, if he was honest, out of his life.

 

_What am I staying alive for? I really miss the job. Pratt died too late for me!_

 

He had tried tentatively to reach out to his contacts, but suddenly the emails were inactive, the phones didn’t ring, letters were returned to sender. That scared him. Some of these men and women had been friends and trusted colleagues and confidants for decades! Some powerful people had made him someone that they used to know. So he withdrew, and tried to find the pattern in the pieces he already had.

 

He knew they’d done their best to do away with not only him, but his most trusted agent, Peter Burke. Then they tried to lure Peter to D.C., where his morals would soon have been compromised, but either Burke was too savvy, or fate had intervened, Hughes couldn’t tell from this distance. But at the death of his friend and C.I., Neal Caffrey, Burke had lost some of the fire, or allowed them to think that, and they left him alone, an aging agent with no career prospects, they thought.

 

Hughes was hoping Burke was playing a long game, but daren’t contact him. That was what might have put him in the most danger, before everything went wrong. Hughes wasn’t sure how Burke had beaten the murder rap, it smelt downright fishy to him – and Caffrey had been alive then, so probably…

 

  _And if that is what had happened, good for you, Neal! Glad you were on my team! Hope it is counted unto you for righteousness, young man! Good men, all of them – ‘specially Diana. Wonder how her boy’s doing?_

 

So now Hughes stayed away from friends and family and gave the best impression he could of a bump in the snow for most of the long winters. It was likely he’d just fade away, no need for a bullet, but he wasn’t going to make himself an easy target.

  
_A sad day when the bad guys keep moving up into positions of more power, and the good guys…well, the lucky ones survive till retirement, and preferably don’t pick up the wrong rocks…or place them back gently and pretend they never saw what was underneath._

_I’m going to need more wood…_

 

 

 

Agent Peter Burke was walking down the path in the Memorial Garden. El had wanted to come, but no. He wanted to be alone, here.

 

He wasn’t a ‘visiting the graves of departed loved ones’ kind of a guy. More likely to have a beer in their honour, think about them for a moment when he came across a picture or an old case…but this was a little different.

 

Neal always was a little different to anyone else! His impact on lives he touched was unexpected, at least to Peter. Even his marks often seemed to love him and miss having him in their lives!

 

He came to the memorial stone and, glancing about, placed the blue hydrangeas at the base of the thing with a feeling of doing something stupid. They were fake – didn’t seem to be any flowers available at this time of year that were the right type of blue, and he wanted blue. Neal’s-eye-blue – should be an oil-paint pigment in his honour. The fact that these were fake (allegedly) would probably have made Neal himself grin that toothpaste-advert grin!

 

The stone was close to the young Northern Catalpa that June and Mozzie had planted. Mozzie had nodded his head sagely at her choice, and when Peter had looked the thing up on the ‘net, he had smiled. The tree grew fast, it had beautiful showy white flowers, huge heart-shaped leaves and a trunk that twisted and curved and made beautiful sculptural shapes. It seemed a good living memorial.

 

He stepped back and read the years engraved on the stone…such a short life, much too short, but he’d _lived_ it!

 

Beneath the dates and his name – the one Peter knew best, anyway -was the quote Mozzie had chosen:

 

 **In any man who dies, there dies with him his first snow and kiss and fight. Not people die but worlds die in them. ~ Yevtushenko**.

 

Mozzie had debated long, sitting at their kitchen table and drinking wine he brought himself, and with many tedious words and glasses of wine, between this, and:

 

‘ **Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That signifies nothing. For us believing physicists the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.’ ~Albert Einstein**

and:

**‘People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our t houghts in the same way as when they were alive.’ ~Marcel Proust;**

 

and a score more quotations Peter could no longer recall. Peter hadn’t had the heart to tell the grieving man to shut up, especially as El was there.

 

The matter had been decided by the length. Now the shortest adorned the dark, grave, grey marble. It didn’t matter to Peter what the words said. It didn’t matter that this small patch of earth housed the ashes of his friend. This little journey would be the last to visit the empty grave. Yes, yes, the remains of the slender body had been laid to rest here, but it had not been, nor was now, his friend.

 

He still saw him by the coffee machine, or sometimes when the doorbell rang at home, for an instant before he pulled it open, he imagined that cheeky grin (there _had_ been times Neal had waited for the door to be opened, just so as not to become too predictable), and when he walked the streets of New York alone…the light footsteps of the dead echoed his, sometimes, and that was the hardest…he’d turn quickly to catch his own reflection in a shop window, and there, again, he sometimes imagined…

 

Peter sighed. _If I had it all to do over, Neal, I’d have never caught you. Sorry._

 

No-one knew Neal’s real birthday except perhaps Mozzie, and James Bennett, if he still lived. Mozzie looked scandalised when Peter asked.

“You think, Suit, because he’s dead, his privacy is no longer of importance to me?”

 

Peter had given up on that. After all, it didn’t matter. But _this_ date he knew…the date he’d taken Neal out of prison, the day he’d really started to get to know Neal Caffrey. Not the awe-inspiring bad man, but the surprisingly easy-to-love good man.

 

He saluted the gravestone, felt even sillier, and turned and walked swiftly away.

 

 _Perhaps Mozzie chose well. Certainly whole aspects of_ _ **my**_ _world died with him!_

 

 

Mozzie made himself knock. He loved June, they’d spent many hours together while Neal was riding sidecar to the Suit: happy, fulfilling hours. She was nobody’s fool, and could read people better than Neal _or_ Mozzie…one tended too far to optimism, the other to paranoia… and though higher mathematics and good chess were out of her range, her cryptographic skills and intuitive calculations of probabilities were admirable. And she and Mozzie shared a sense of fun and humour that baffled even Neal.

 

With all this, visiting the gracious lady was now an ordeal. Before or after a marathon Parcheesi tournament, Moz had always gone upstairs and checked on his best friend (and often his wine collection, and the comfort of his couch.) Now the Silence from Upstairs seemed as though someone had poured twenty tonnes of wet concrete into the loft: oppressive.

 

It was worse if they sat on the balcony. Somehow the faintest smell of thinners still caught in his nostrils, or his imagination supplied it, and he kept expecting that light tenor, filled with (always, at least in Mozzie’s memory) delight at seeing his friends there together, calling a greeting as he threw his hat with precision on to the hat-stand, trying to make it spin before coming to rest.

 

Mozzie had never admired June more than after Neal died. Her classy hospitality remained unchanged, her back was just as straight, she never made him feel like the decidedly inferior plus-one to the handsome, charming man who was like a son to her. Only when she didn’t think he was looking, if he caught her reflection in a mirror, was her expression filled with yearning

 

Today she opened the door herself, and took the bright yellow roses he’d brought with a smile, and led him through to her special living room.

 

“Make yourself at home, Mozzie, I will go and fetch the tray.”

 

“No, let me help,” Mozzie insisted, and they went into the kitchen and June brought out a vase of great beauty, as though to honour Mozzie’s gift, and with great care set the roses in it, adding an aspirin to the water. Then she carried the vase and Mozzie carried the tray and they returned and made themselves comfortable.

 

“I gave the staff the rest of the day off.

_____“How are you, Mozzie?” she asked. He knew, and she knew, that this was their code for, ‘How are you doing without him?’

 

Mozzie nodded. “Making do, June. Working on upgrading a new safe-house. Getting on with life.”

 

They shared the coffee and the little tid-bits of delicious food, and Mozzie was beginning to wonder if it was time to leave. He wished they could be comfortable together, they both tried, but something – someone – was lacking. Before, even in his absence, he had never made them feel that he was missing.

 

June went across to her mahogany Biedamaier escritoire, the most desirable Mozzie had ever seen, and opened one of the drawers and withdrew an envelope. She brought it over and handed it to Mozzie, along with a carved ivory letter-opener that he knew doubled as a dagger in a pinch, and he glanced up at her and then paid more attention to her expression. A small, impish smile played with her lips.

 

He carefully slit the envelope and pulled out first a folded missive on thin, hand-made paper.

 

He read:

 

Dearest Mozzie!

Do not explode into angry quotations about betrayal and treachery, even if they are accurate! As you no doubt guessed the moment you saw my hand, I am alive and well.

You were my mark in this, Mozzie or I liked to think Peter was our mark…Peter and anyone else watching. I know you can act, but I wanted your reactions to be so perfect that he (and anyone else watching) would be entirely convinced. Because, of course, he has been suspicious of me all along (with perfectly good reason in many cases) and I have ‘died’ rather often! I could keep June out of the action, but you _had_ to be there.

If dear June has given this to you, then the last of the Panthers have been convicted and sentenced and imprisoned. Not that they do not have lackeys on the outside, but it will be a long time that you have been all alone and lonely, and Peter has been doing FBI things and looking after his son, so most will accept my death as fact by now.

June has an address. You might want to visit it. There’s a container there. She has the number so you don’t need to open all of them!

If you choose not to, if you are too hurt and angry with me, I fully understand. It was a mean trick to play on you, but I couldn’t risk your safety and June’s, not for selfish reasons and not even for your feelings…they knew about June and would find you to revenge themselves on me if they thought for one minute I had survived. Keller knew about you, and he was mean enough to give them a list of my friends through the years, as leverage and proof of his allegiance. I do not know this for a fact, I just suspect it.

I will be trying to contact Alex, to try and protect her – I don’t think Keller ever knew about Sara and me, and we split apart a good long time ago, so she should be safe. Alex was always in and out of my life.

I never thought Peter and El and the rest of the team in danger, the Panthers’ minions would be mad to go after the FBI, but I couldn’t trust any of them, of course.

June also has a bottle and a key. I am not sure if Peter will work it out, but after you have visited the container (if you do), you might want to leave the bottle on his doorstep if you feel that beyond a shadow of a doubt he will not tell anyone or come after me. I am leaving it up to you.

The container holds a bunch of ‘clues’, but no DNA or fingerprints. Please take the newspaper June gives you and leave it in the container. Peter put himself in an invidious position often to chase me – Cape Verde is a case in point. If he comes to the FBI with a bunch of things he could have collected I believe they will see it as a pathetic attempt on his part to give himself a reason to be an important chaser of famous criminals, again!

After all his belittling comments, I think I not only want him to know I’m alive, but that I bested him, in the end. In my end! I didn’t know him personally before he caught me using Kate. I am now in no way afraid he will catch me again, ever, but I would rather he and Elizabeth settle down. I wish no revenge. I have some very good memories.

Whatever you do, remain very vigilant, both of you. I could only go through with this because of you. I could never get my freedom at the risk of the lives of my best friends. I was in two minds right to the end of the con.

Thank you for everything, Mozzie, mon frère. Truly, mon frère.

 

 

Mozzie re-read it swiftly, and glanced up at June. She took the envelope and removed a pamphlet with a slip of paper clipped to it. It was an address and a number attached to a tourist brochure about the beautiful Gardens of Ninfa. Mozzie smiled. Neal had always been crazy about those gardens…supposedly the most romantic gardens in Italy, probably the world. Mozzie had once suspected it was about a girl, but had never had that confirmed.

 

“This newspaper is what you leave in the container,” June told Mozzie, handing it to him. It was a recent USA newspaper with a front page article about the Louvre security upgrade. Mozzie grinned a little. _If Peter hasn’t changed,_ _ **that’ll**_ _make him go haring off in the wrong direction!_

 

Then his face fell. “He lied to us,” Mozzie said to June. “And blast! I should have gone with the _entire_ quotation by Proust:

**"‘People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. _It is as though they were travelling abroad._ '**

..........“But I guess it might have given it away even to the Suit!” he took a deep breath. “He lied to me, June.”

 

“He had a good reason, Mozzie.”

 

“He lied to _me_ – he told you!”

 

June remained silent. It was one of her most potent weapons, silence. Mozzie shrugged a little. “I get it. But I could have conned Peter – for heaven’s sake! Even without a little warning.”

 

“And his wife?”

 

“Of course!”

 

“You were very fond of Elizabeth at one time, Neal said.”

 

Mozzie shifted uneasily. “Yeah. And she was devastated, but I would never have told her!”

 

“Even with the baby on the way?”

 

“I wouldn’t! I – I’m not even that friendly with her, June. Not after what Neal did for them, and – well, she’s changed. I always thought pregnant women were supposed to have a glow…I didn’t think it was supposed to be measureable in yottabecquerels!”

 

June raised her eyebrows, and Mozzie said, a little impatiently, “Large measure of dangerous radioactivity, like luminescent radon.”

 

“Ah.

         “Did you tell Neal you felt that way about El?”

 

Mozzie’s face twisted a little. “He was very angry, you know, after they refused his release, and then he was kidnapped. He remained angry. I didn’t want to make him more upset. There is a chance he didn’t know my feelings about Mrs. Suit.” Mozzie sighed. “So it is possible he thought I might share the truth with her if she was very upset, especially when we found she was pregnant. There are times I do not wish to be proven correct.”

 

June patted his shoulder a little, then sat down opposite him.

 

Mozzie thought a moment. “I will go to him as soon as I can. The Gardens are open this time of the year.”

 

“I know, Mozzie. I know you will.”

 

“He seems to think I may just stay here! Like that’s going to happen. But I’m sorry, June.”

 

“Yes. I know I can’t. You – you’re the breeze, no-one will wonder that you have mourned and now move on.”

 

“And you will stay.”

 

“Yes. If we both leave, even for a time, and Burke – or anyone else –notices, it could be disastrous.”

 

“After some time…?”

 

“Staremo a vedere come…is that about right?”

 

"I didn’t know you knew any Italian!”

 

“I was told a few things. I had to find an Italian Newspaper with something about the gardens, or the area – he knew you’d remember…it wasn’t hard to guess part of his plan. I couldn’t find a newspaper, but found a brochure.

         “I had it set up… just in case something happened to me. Neal was very anxious about us both. And the Panther’s leader had been here, in my _house,_ apparently!

         “So I made a plan. All the information would have been given to you immediately if something had happened to me. I brought the package back from my lawyers this morning.” June leaned forward, her hands clasped on the table between them.

         “He struggled with leaving you in the dark for as long as it took to get the Pink Panthers safely behind bars. But they knew of me…and they might have people watching me. If you had been told not to come to visit me it would have hurt us both. Neal wanted us to have each other.”

 

“He has left the Suit in the dark.”

 

“He never said very much, you know, about Agent Burke. Only when I caught him in deep distress the one night when Agent Burke had been here, saying terrible things to him. And when he was making the plan I asked him directly and he said he thought Peter would rather he was dead or imprisoned than have the kind of life he truly wanted.

         “Agent Burke disliked the fact that he was living here rather than a dirty and very unpleasant motel: he made his thoughts very clear in loud words that very first morning, saying that Neal didn’t deserve it, so I think Neal might have a point.”

 

“He never told me that. But he wants the Suit to know he’s alive now?”

 

June smiled. “Heart of gold and misguided affections, sometimes, that’s Neal. But _this_ sounds as though it’s as much a little…what shall we call it…showing that he has not too great a respect for his ex-handler. So perhaps he’s finally learnt to guard his heart a little!

         “And he is misleading Agent Burke, so he obviously doesn’t want any chance of renewing their relationship.”

 

Mozzie cheered up. “What books do you have?”

 

“Books?”

 

“Yes, we may not stay …wherever he is staying! We need a simple unbreakable code. You have a great many books – I need to find the same edition as one of them!”

 

June smiled, genuinely pleased. ‘Her boys’ would not forget her, and they would get together after a time, when it was safe.

 

 

 

**Four Months Later:**

 

 

Mozzie was wandering the picturesque streets of Sermoneta, nibbling on delicious chocolate. He found that he loved it here…the people, the buildings that seemed as old as the roots of the earth. He enjoyed the food…lucky there was so much climbing, it was such a hilly village, no place to park cars or buses. He had never been in better shape!

 

They stayed in a few rooms which the landlady gave them for a small remuneration. And the views were good competition for June’s!

 

And Neal was so happy and settled and the people lit up whenever he appeared. He taught many of the children art for free, and had put a few of his own works on the Maggio Sermonetano the month before, but was more interested in the works of the children, the locals he helped and the tourists who took part in the art projects he’d organised.

 

Many of them wanted to return, some even booked and gave down-payments for the following year and Neal was very popular around the town for that, too. He worked as a tour-guide to the Gardens, which meant he could be there many days a week, and was in great demand because of his fluency in many languages as well as the fact that he was liked by everyone.

 

He made sure that members of his tour never went hungry or thirsty; an older person, or one in some pain or disability had a place to sit and if possible Neal would wait with them. He remembered everyone’s allergies and interests and made sure their stay was something they would remember forever, in the best possible way.

 

“Some of them have saved up for most of their lives for this, Moz,” he said, fondly, writing in hand-drawn cards to the last group he’d shepherded.

 

If what Mozzie heard was anything to go by, he could move to twenty or more countries at a moments notice and have a room to stay when he landed there! (And that was a lovely way to avoid pursuit, staying in a private home! No credit card receipts, no need to venture into public at least for a week or two!)

 

Not that anyone seemed to be pursuing. Mozzie and June had set up a complicated multi-linked passage for communiqués and varied the route each time – and the letters were in the form of three different book codes at random. Mozzie just checked the first words to ascertain which book June was using.

 

Mozzie thought that he himself looked the same as usual (minus a few pounds), but Neal didn’t. He had still that easy stride, but his hair was longer, he often wore sunglasses, he had a light tan…and he was casual and _relaxed._ Other than when he was working he would converse for a while with each aged nonna who sat by a sunny wall; every village cat would spend the time of day with him; he went over, when he had time, to pick lemons or roses and do little chores for people.

 

Mozzie had an idea if the FBI came for Neal, that the people would withdraw behind the aged walls and defend him! Not that Mozzie ever thought they would come.

 

Neal himself was enjoying every day. Sometimes, when he woke and went out for something a little special, fresh-baked for breakfast, he would come back to find that Mozzie had the coffee ready and was sitting enjoying the sight of the undulating countryside from his favourite chair. He would stand in the doorway and breathe a sigh of relief.

 

He had dreaded finding out that his dangerous escape plan…and that tetrodotoxin was dangerous! And Keller might have knifed him!...had caused the death of his friends. The Pink Panthers were wicked and ruthless and had a myriad of connections. He couldn’t keep tabs on June and Mozzie, of course…and he didn’t know how Mozzie would feel….

 

Moz had been terribly hurt when he’d lied about that cursed manifest. This might be a betrayal of such proportions that he would never see Moz again.

 

_Worth it. Rather he was hating me viciously in New York, or Sydney, Australia, than dead._

 

So when one day he’d been walking up the lovely if steep paved street, a little tired from the day, and he looked up to see those bright eyes, that teasing grin…

“What was I supposed to do, _not_ _come?”_ Mozzie had chuckled, and then grunted as Neal had hugged the breath out of him. They both talked at once for a moment, then burst out laughing, so glad to be together.

He’d taken Mozzie home and shown him the leather couch he had found especially (it was bigger than his own bed!) and they’d picked up without a hiccough, as only great friends can. He still missed June, but knew they would get together soon.

 

“You do know we have all this money, and quite a large proportion of the treasure, still,” Moz mentioned once.

 

“I know. Nice. If we ever need it.”

 

“You have no wish to pull any jobs?”

 

“No. Don’t even feel tempted to lift the wallet of the most obnoxious tourist – wait! I did. The one guy was so nasty to a pair of older sisters who were a little less quick on their feet and were impeding his enjoyment…I did take it, took his money and put most in their purses. Then I dropped it, and a few loose notes, in the river.”

 

“Neal!”

 

“I dropped it where he could see it!” Neal protested. “He got very wet, though. And muddy, trying to climb up the bank. And his new, very expensive Italian shoes…” His smile was beatific. “He threw them away. Stupid. I collected them and cleaned them and dried them stuffed with newspaper and they’re fine. Gave them to the priest, poor man had walked out the bottoms of his! Can’t have a sole- less priest, now can we?”

 

“So you want to stop being a criminal?”

 

“No. I am just fulfilled and happy. And I don’t need very much. And you?” Neal realised with a start that perhaps he was hampering his friend’s ambitions.

 

Mozzie shrugged. “I always wanted a great whale of a job…and we got _two_ of them! That’s pretty spectacular, don’t you think?”

 

Neal grinned back. “Pretty awesome, that’s us!”

 

“No need to gild the lily…”

 

“Unless you get bored.”

 

“Or you do!”

 

 

 

In the middle of October, Neal was feeling a little bored. Not knock-over-the-Crown-Jewels bored, but he wanted to stretch his boundaries a little.

"It’s cooler in Rome, now, shall we take a jaunt and visit the fountains…

            “I haven’t even _seen_ the Maxxi, I want to go back to the Palazzo Altemps and revisit Pozzo's cycle of works in Sant'Ignazio, and dance with a stranger on a clear night in the Piazza del Campidoglio!”

  
“I have no problem with that. There are some easy trips to wonderful places around Rome that I would like to experience.”

 

Mozzie was not stupid. He knew when to pander to Neal’s itchy feet before they became inflamed! And there were some lovely wines to be experienced. He had always been able to go…pack up and go. There were so many things in the world that Neal had missed.

 

He was surprised that it had taken Neal this long!

 

They went their separate ways when they got to the great and ancient capital, where history spoke from many stones…Mozzie liked petrified art and all that, but preferred the potable version. So he travelled between wineries, with some brash tourists and some fellow experts, enjoying himself.

 

He found Neal, on returning, meadering about the Giardino degli Aranci, and apparently in a nostalgic mood.

“I should never have had June leave that stupid newspaper for Peter. Or I should specified a paper about…I don’t know…Easter Island?”

 

“You miss Paris.”

 

“Yes, I do! I love Paris in the winter. I love the lights, reflected and doubled on the wet roads, I love the Christmas markets, the beauty, the lack of tourists! I love it when it snows…! Paris looks like the best snow-globe, all lit up and beautiful – but even if it doesn’t…the culture, the museums. I really love it.”

  
Mozzie considered that whichever city had been featured in the container as a clue for the Suit, Neal would feel an urge to go there. Neal always loved forbidden fruit, taking risks he shouldn’t. There was this countessa, once….

 

“I think if the Suit had been planning a visit to the Louvre, he would have done it before now, Neal. And with everyone bundled up in winter and rain gear, he’d be hard-pressed to pick you out of a crowd, even if it is a small, Parisian crowd!”

 

“I won’t be able to in the spring and summer, with the tour business,” Neal told him, hopefully.

 

“Neal, you can _go_ to Easter Island, if it pleases you…and you don’t need me to go with you. And on that note, Easter Island or pictures of the moai do not pop up often on the front page of national newspapers, nor is Burke likely to believe you are going to steal one!”

 

Neal’s face split into a grin. “No; true!”

 

“Where is Alex, anyway?”

 

“I tried to contact her…well, we made contact. She’s more annoyed with me than I thought. I told her to be careful and she told me I had caused her more problems than I was worth and to stay away!”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah.” Neal sighed. “Can’t say I blame her.”

 

They were far from anyone, and Moz said, softly, “We can give her the treasure, if you like. That’s what’s bugging her.”

 

Neal’s blue eyes were huge as he turned to Mozzie. Mozzie grinned and said, “At the rate we’re using our stash, we’d have to live longer than Methuselah to scrape the surface of it!”

 

“I bought some art supplies,” Neal warned. “They’re being sent home.”

 

“Ditto on the wine,” Mozzie returned. “But with you working and us living cheaply-but-well, we actually come out on top some months!”

 

“Who would have thought it? Us, in the black, without crime. Tsk, tsk!”

 

“Go to Paris, Neal. Find a sweet and lonely and rather cold _belle fille.”_

 

“Cold?”

 

“Cold. Winter. Skate with her, feed her _vin chaud_ in correct volumes, put your coat around her slim shoulders…you can take it from there, I’m sure!”

 

“I want to show you some book shops and little art galleries, and then, _mon frère_ , we go to Paris!”

 

“If you insist. I can always visit Paris!”

 

So they did. Neal walked enough to dull the tickles, Mozzie drank enough to keep him satisfied. No pretty girls of any temperature took Neal’s interest for long. He began to think longingly of their little home in Italy for Christmas, when everything in Paris shut down, and so they set off one late afternoon for a last meander, which left them staring at the Eiffel Tower in a sudden and most likely short-lived snow storm.

 

“There’s your snow-globe, Neal,” Mozzie told him, as the lights shone through the swirling flakes. Neal smiled down and sideways at his friend. “Are we heading home? With or without the Mona Lisa?”

 

“Oh, I would never steal her,” Neal said, shaking his head and shedding snow down on Mozzie, luckily covered with a thick woollen flapped hat and matching coat. He glanced up enquiringly and Neal said, “Other things I like better! Though at least she’d fit on our walls back home, hm?”

 

“I’d like some original Caffrey’s…or whoever you want to sign them as…for our walls, thank you!”

 

They walked along and Neal’s thoughts were turned inwards, but Mozzie had drunk enough wine to make him super-aware. The people in France, especially in the major cities, _were_ more chic than many other places. They made attractive outlines against the shining streets where the snow melted. There were groups of two or three people, a few solitary youngsters, one very lanky, loose-limbed man wearing hardly enough to stay warm, one would think. There was also a woman in a wheelchair, with no-one to help her, trundling along in front of them, but Mozzie knew how irritating unsolicited help could be, and merely kept an eye on her.

 

They were about to go straight when the wheelchair had turned right down a small side street, and Mozzie nudged Neal and said, softly, “Let’s just see her home, shall we?”

 

Neal smiled and nodded, and they sauntered slowly after her, keeping a good distance behind and talking softly about what they would do for Christmas, and Neal’s plans to rent some studio space…

…Then the wheel of the wheel-chair got caught in a groove in the pavement as the woman turned to get into her front door, and the thing tipped. Neal sprinted over, though the chair remained at an angle to the vertical and did not fall, but seemed stuck. The woman was trying to tug it loose, without results, and causing her position to become, if anything, more perilous.

 

Neal reached her, said, in French, “Wait! I’ve got you!” and wrenched on the chair. He freed the wheel and asked, “Are you all right?”

 

Mozzie, coming up more slowly, was surprised when the woman didn’t turn her head. Perhaps she was deaf? But Neal touched her shoulder gently, and she still didn’t turn.

 

Then, slowly, she did. Neal pulled back as though burnt. “ _Ellen!”_ he exclaimed.

 

“Neal,” she acknowledged. “Can we go inside, please?”

 

Mozzie took her key and opened the door and Neal pushed the chair in.

 

“I – you were shot! How – why are you in a chair and how did you get out of the country! You just had to have had help…?” Neal was demanding answers, and a shadow appeared from the other room.

 

“That would be me,” a man’s voice said.

 

Neal stepped back, stood on Mozzie’s foot and nearly knocked him off balance completely, since he couldn’t take a step back to save himself until Neal moved. “Dad,” Neal whispered.

 

Mozzie shut and locked the door and Neal swallowed and said more strongly, and with Peter-esque vocal overtones, “What are you doing to Ellen, Dad!”

 

“Neal, please just calm down,” Ellen said in her soft voice.

 

Mozzie stayed quiet. He always found that a better way to get answers, and Ellen repeated his thought, “If you want answers, you should just be quiet a minute and not jump to conclusions!”

 

“I’ll find the kitchen and make some tea,” Mozzie said, and James pointed over Ellen and Neal in the right direction. Mozzie left the door open to listen!

 

“This, Tilly, is what happens when you try and tail someone in a wheelchair!” James said, slightly petulantly.

 

“Well, _you_ wouldn’t!” ‘Tilly’ said. “I told you it was Neal!”

 

“Kenneth, to be exact,” Neal told her.

 

“Let’s just stay with originals, here,” James said. “Enough confusion as it is!”

 

“Oh, so I get to call you ‘Daddy’?” Neal snarked, angrily.

 

“I wouldn’t tail him and I asked you not to because _this_ is the result!” James told Ellen with annoyance.

 

There was a moment’s pause as everyone looked suspiciously at everyone else.

 

“But you _died!”_ Neal said to Ellen, and there was anxiety in his voice, and real distress.

 

“Yeah, not so much fun as you thought, is it, Neal?” Mozzie said, coming in with a tray. “The being-left-behind-in-the-dark, I mean?”

 

Neal swung round and bit his lip.

 

“What does _that_ mean?” James asked. “And how did you escape …from…oh….

            “You, too?” He suddenly threw back his head and laughed.

 

“Oh, yes, since you, as your Sam-alias also died, I’m the only one here still living and breathing!” Mozzie told him. “Despite various attempts on my life! Are we going to sit down, or would you like to stand about like idiots at a cocktail party and hold your cake plates and tea-cups, unable to drink or eat?”

 

James manoeuvred Ellen’s chair and waved Neal and Mozzie to occasional chairs, while he sat on Ellen’s foot-rest.

 

They all sat down like birds when they know a sparrow-hawk is hunting in the vicinity, watchful and nervous, except for Mozzie.

 

“You’d better come clean, _Dad!”_ Neal told him, threateningly.

 

“Neal, stop,” Ellen said, with authority. “I know there have been too many secrets, some of them were unavoidable. But you don’t know what you’re talking about. I led you here, and I’m sorry. I just wanted to see that it was you. But if you stay, you behave.”

 

Neal responded to her. She’s been there for him when he was little. “I need some answers – truthful ones.”

 

James relaxed after a minute. “Fair enough, Neal.

“To start at the beginning, I came on the scene in New York because the bad guys were coming after …Ellen. We made contact and I wanted to get her out and away. She wanted to stay with you, Neal, as long as possible, despite my concern.

______“Well, they found her and shot her. Just missed the kill shot. I did the best I could and fixed things and got her out and into a nursing home outside Paris, where I had contacts.

_______“Not the most recommended course of treatment for a critically ill woman, but it was the best I could do.”

 

“Why should I believe you?” Neal demanded. “ _You_ could have shot her…”

 

“With Flynn’s gun?” Mozzie asked, acerbically. “Let the man finish, Neal.”

 

Neal huffed, but took the piece of Ellen’s seed cake and the tea and set them on a side table.

 

James went on, pensively, “I nearly lost Ellen. I left her in good care and rushed back to try and protect _you_ , Neal.”

 

“I didn’t need - ” Neal started, to be cut off by Ellen’s, “Neal! Be quiet!”

 

“You had no reason to trust me, Neal, _I_ didn’t know who to trust, either. I didn’t know you, I _wanted_ to trust you, but you were so involved with Peter…”

 

“Oh, yeah, the bad guy, Peter!” Neal interjected. “Sorry, sorry, carry on!”

 

“He seemed okay, bit conformist, smugly complacent…but Neal, when I was with the cops, there were a lot of what appeared to be good guys who weren’t – and he kept using the databases, found Ellen for them, found me for them! So even if he was honest and true, didn’t mean those around him, or those who had access to his work were! There’s a whole network of computers attached to your Peter Burke! Not only that, but someone had ousted Hughes…but left Peter. What was I to think?”

 

Neal took a sip of hot tea and nodded once. “That’s true. Burke always trusted the system more than I did ‘specially after Kramer, Collins, Fowler…and - ”

 

“Wait, wait…” Mozzie put in, determinedly. “There are things long before you appeared as Sam, James, that I do not understand. The evidence box, the briefcase, that stupid locket and the key that Ellen …Kathryn…made when Neal was three…. How could you know that you’d have access to the Empire State Building?”

 

“It isn’t an important part of the story!” James frowned.

 

“It is to me…if I am to trust you both,” Mozzie said, and shrugged at Neal’s look of horror that anyone could mistrust his Ellen.

 

“I made the tape when Neal was about…four? I’d been doing research and investigating, trying to get the corrupt cops, trying to exonerate James, who was my partner. I told you he could not murder anyone, Neal – I believed that, and I worked to prove that. There was a lot of evidence, but not enough - and they’d set him up too carefully and there were too many of them – I would need to bring them down first, or they’d just kill us both.

_______“James jumped the protection of WitSec because Pratt and the rest could find him. They didn’t know I knew very much, I was trying very hard to keep under the radar while I searched for clues. But of course James knew them and could tell more about the organisation, if he wasn’t wanted for murder.

_______“But to go back a little – I made that tape. I knew that WitSec could move me away from you, Neal. And you were a small boy! I didn’t know who you would be when you grew up – even whether you _would_ grow up! These people have nothing against killing, and a child is just a soft target to them, even barring accidents and illness. I had to keep you as safe as possible.

_______“But I also wanted there to be something to bring down the corruption. So I held onto the briefcase as long as I could, always hiding it, adding to it, hiding it somewhere else – always putting a coded message into the locket for you or for James, who may get the tape, also.”

 

“But WitSec let you stay near me until I was eighteen. Why didn’t you share it with me?” Neal seemed hurt.

 

Ellen smiled, her dimple showed. “By that time…well, time passed. I didn’t hear from your father. You grew up all excited to be a hero-cop like him, you practised things like shadowing people and you read crime novels and books about real, unsolved crimes. Every week, another possible Jack the Ripper, for a while there!” Neal chuckled, remembering.

_______“I so wanted you to just settle down and become a bank manager or something safe and dull! Most children grow out of their first dreams…fireman, train-driver, cowboy…not you.

_______“I told you, Neal. You were about to go and enter the Academy. The cops there would have thought you were a cop-killer’s son. It would have devastated you. So I brought you to my place and told you the truth about the fact that your dad was dirty and had run, he was, as far as I knew, alive. I was about to share everything else – give you the tape – everything – and you freaked out. I didn’t handle the whole thing very well, I guess.”

 

“My mother and you had lied – my whole life was a lie, Ellen. My dreams of becoming a cop – nothing made sense to me. I looked at you, my mom, and saw strangers who had been lying to me every day of my life! I just needed to get away.”

 

“I’m truly sorry, Neal. I’m not sure what I should have done, but obviously, that wasn’t it!”

 

“I still don’t…” Mozzie started.

 

“So I still had the tape. It was still valid, though I’d been gathering more evidence – publically reported meetings between Pratt and certain businessmen I knew had hinky reputations back in the day – murders that furthered his and the other members’ careers, or perhaps covered up phony business deals, or – well, anything that could be useful, that may tie up everything.”

 

“You still were a cop, and a good one!” James told her, smiling. “I don’t understand why you still wanted to help me. I did take the bribe money.”

 

“Because I’m a cop, and a good one! I knew Neal had committed crimes, but was a good and loyal man. I saw the same thing in you. Taking money for your family when there’s millions lying about and your bills aren’t paid is one thing – killing a man in cold blood is something else again.”

 

“Can we get back…?” Mozzie queried.

 

“Well, I had the locket!” Ellen smiled again. “Damn, clunky thing – I grew to hate it, especially when I was wearing it all the time! At first I just put the address of a safety-deposit box and the key to it in there. That key was small enough to fit. I hid the locket under the floor-boards – remember, Neal, you kept lifting them at our homes in St Louis because you heard that murderers had buried bodies? You were always disappointed…!

_______“I thought you’d think of that, if you came and saw the boards were loose. I tried to make the whole thing secure, but always hoping that you were somewhere far away, safe and free, not thinking of the United States, me, your dad or mom at all!”

 

“Then I came back to New York.”

 

“Yes, Neal. You came back for Kate.”

 

“I was trying to prove to her that I could give her that great life I’d shown her. I stole the Raphael, and Burke was closing in and I just wanted to find her and take it and fly away into the blue. But I never did manage to flush her out. Until the day Burke arrested me. Mozzie warned me it was a setup, and I sent the painting to you, hoping that if he was wrong I could just come and get it back.”

  
  “How did you know where Ellen had been sent?” James asked.

 

“Mozzie found her for me. Computers were easier to hack back then.”

 

“I can still hack my way through a great many firewalls!” Mozzie objected with a sniff.

 

“I had gone to see Ellen,” Neal told Mozzie.

 

“I told you not to!”

 

“I know. But she – I was - ”

 

“He just wanted someone to talk to about Kate, Mozzie,” Ellen said. “Why she was being so elusive, whether there was any chance for him. For what it was worth, when he told me about some of the things he’d been up to, and Burke closing in, I told him to run!”

 

“He told you about those corks….Then why not tell him then about the evidence box?” Mozzie demanded.

 

“Oh and give him a reason to stay in New York? Oh, no! And for the same reason I hesitated later on: there was evidence, but not incontrovertible proof about all the dirty cops - and what they later became, senators and so on. For the same reason I couldn't use it...it would have just complicated his life!

______"But sadly, very soon afterwards, Burke got him.”

 

“And then?” Mozzie nodded.

 

Ellen shrugged, the grief on her face very obvious. “Neal was arrested, eventually tried and sent to prison. He didn’t have the same name as James, and it wasn’t of great interest to the public – he wasn’t a Bernie Madoff.”

 

“Thank you – I think!” Neal huffed.

 

“But he did have the same name as his mother. WitSec was afraid that if there was anything to my story, that this would stir things up again. They moved me to New York, and your mother…somewhere. Split us up.

 

”I was so afraid that Pratt and company might kill you in prison, Neal, just to tie up loose ends.”

 

“But I was just a child back then! What did I know?”

 

“I think they might have come to that conclusion – but I also have good evidence that links Jacks, one of Pratt’s henchman who has continued to have ties to Pratt all the way through, to Adler. You went to work for Adler.

         “Adler was supposed, I think, to get away – he had help, obviously! – and leave you holding the baby for the scam, the scapegoat, the one they could lay their hands on. You’d have been put away for decades. They probably meant you to go down for a murder or two, as well.

         “Unfortunately for the group, Adler does not play well with others. He didn’t throw you to the wolves.”

 

“Why?” Neal demanded.

 

“Only thing that makes sense, in light of what he told you,” Mozzie said, “is that he liked you.”

 

“Not sure I take that as a compliment.”

 

“You were bright and you soaked up his teaching like a sponge. Can see the allure, to have an heir.” Mozzie’s face was hidden in shadow. Neal made a mental note to speak to him later about that remark.

 

“But he, Adler, not in connection with the corrupt cops, then got Kate to stop seeing you so that you would run, and they waited for you to do so…they couldn’t come near Kate’s apartment, too risky. They never expected you to just wait for Burke.”

 

“Damn, that’s very possible,” Neal nodded. “Adler wanted me because he wanted the music box by then…oh, so that’s why he .…okay, I see. I just let everyone think I had the box to try and get Kate to think I could take care of her! And I got her killed!”

 

There was a silence, then Mozzie said, “Kate always ran in the wrong crowd, Neal. If she’d stuck by you, you could have helped her. She was no criminal mastermind! She should have been married to that bank-manager Ellen wanted you to be! She always was the victim. Sooner or later…”

 

“I just made it sooner.”

 

“She died thinking that you were coming to her, that everything would be fine, the sun would always shine. Not a bad way to go,” Mozzie told him, to his surprise, but Neal countered,

“I turned back to Burke – which is why Adler blew the plane. She might have thought I was _not_ going to join her.”

 

“I really want to get these people. They have ruined so many lives,” James remarked.

 

“That they have, James, that they have.” Ellen reached out and took Neal’s hand and squeezed it comfortingly.

 

“You went to work for Griffon-Moore Security,” Mozzie went on with the story.

 

“Yes. 2010, that was. I couldn’t contact Neal, it would have been disastrous.

         “I didn’t know where James was, or what he was doing. And I knew someone was watching, following. I daren’t hide all my findings, now housed in an evidence box, anywhere I normally went…but I did have access for one afternoon to the offices being renovated for Aaron Tech. I shoved the box past the portion that had already been finished, as far as I could, and got away from there.”

 

“And the locket and the tape?”

 

“I hid the tape in a book and wore the locket – which had the previous address of the evidence, at that point! But I remembered your cork story and I made the key to let you know at least which building I’d hidden it. You’d always been so smart!”

 

“Ellen had hidden her evidence box, but I didn’t know where. I just wanted to find it so you would trust me.” James looked down sadly, and Neal stared at him, incredulous. “She was so near death for so long, and I wouldn’t have wanted to reach out to her…well, everything seemed fraught with danger.”

 

“You wanted to find it to make me _trust_ you? When it said that you were guilty?”

 

“Yes, Neal, didn’t that make you question, boy?” Ellen asked, irritated. “If all the evidence box contained was incontrovertible proof that your father was a murderer, why would I not just have told you that when you were in your teens, not had you puzzle all your days, and then go after that stupid box at great risk to yourself and, as it turned out, Peter Burke, Mozzie, James…”

 

“Let’s not forget Pratt!” Neal reminded her.

 

“He was about to shoot me, Neal – look, why don’t you just leave?

         “Tilly, he’s never going to trust me, so there’s no point to this!”

 

“Why don’t _you_ leave?” Neal queried. “You’re the problem. I want to talk to Ellen!”

 

“I’m not leaving her with you!”

 

There was a silence.

 

Impasse...

 

Then Ellen said, “Neal, I do not know how I would have survived without your father. I ended up in this stupid chair – complications, blood clots from the original surgeries… anyway, when I had to leave the hospital, James made sure I was looked after again and then, when you were convinced that he was a murderer and every other menace to society, he came back here… and he was devastated, by the way, by your attitude and your short-sightedness… and has looked after me ever since.”

 

This time the silence was oppressive, and Mozzie said, calmly, “More tea, anyone?”

 

James passed his cup gratefully, and Neal said, “So you’re trying to tell me the evidence was switched?”

 

“ _Think,_ Neal!” Ellen insisted. “I told you your father confessed! I told you I never thought he would cross that line, that I’d been investigating the corruption to try and clear him _till_ he confessed. Why would I do that if I had already lodged my report from the day of the shooting saying I had walked in on him with the gun, his fingerprints on it – basically an open-and-shut case! I would have been totally convinced of his guilt!

         “I thought you were smarter than this!”

 

“Not, Ellen, dear, when his heart gets involved,” Mozzie told her.

 

Neal bit his lip again. “When was it switched?”

 

James shook his head. “We have no idea. If Pratt had it in his hands I might think he’d done it, but Mozzie spirited it away. Guess he didn’t trust me, either!”

 

“Sorry, James, if I was wrong, but I don’t trust anyone in Neal’s life till they prove themselves, and you hadn’t. Neal is…let’s say I try and protect Neal.”

 

“It was a smart move,” James agreed. “I have had only two theories…Ellen only one - that someone was watching her and saw her secrete the box, and swopped out the documents inside. The Marshals moved her soon afterwards, otherwise she’d probably have been dead way back then. Perhaps they suspected someone was watching, I don’t know.”

 

“But why change them?” Neal asked. “Why not just remove the whole box?”

 

“In case Ellen had a way of telling someone else about the box,” James told him. “Which she did! This way, it would be absolute proof to anyone – like you, or the government, that I was guilty, and the others – the conspiracy of dirty cops Ellen was investigating – did not exist and never had.”

 

“If all it contained was a perfect copy of my report, why would I have allowed you to think for one minute that your father was innocent of the murder, why would I give you false hope and leave you vulnerable to him if he ever contacted you, Neal?” Ellen repeated.

 

“No, that doesn’t make sense,” Neal said, frowning. He glanced up. “So – so you are innocent?”

 

“Yes!” James said, frustrated. “I can even prove it – to you. Not sure I want to, though.”

 

“How?” Neal said, meekly.

 

“We have a …well, now we have a thumb drive with all of it on, along with a few hard copies of things, evidence, things like that. I had taken it from Ellen and brought it here to France while I was lying low. It isn’t here, before you ask! It’s somewhere safe. If you do anything, it will all just be lost.”

 

“But then why didn’t you just tell me! Why did we have to go running off to the Empire State Building!”

 

“Because you were stuck in New York by that bloody anklet-tracker-thing, with Burke puffing down your neck - and mine! – boy, what a tight-rope walk – and I was trying to win your trust and protect you from the corrupt cops – and the Flynns, as it turned out. So I wanted to get the documents and have you on my side, a hundred per cent, both of you. Then perhaps we could work out who, amongst the authorities, we could trust with the stuff. Talk to the wrong bloke, catch a bullet – not something I wanted for you, or me – Ellen was still needing help over here.”

 

“And then when you came back to the studio…”

 

“I started looking at the papers, and I couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t what Ellen and I had collected – it was all different. It was only documents, not many, and those fake. Then you came out and started accusing me…” James swallowed and looked at the little electric fire. “Then you can guess what I thought.”

 

“No, I can’t!” Neal was anguished to see his father’s face, even knowing it could be a con. James had conned him. James was good at this!

 

“Neal! You and Mozzie were the only ones I knew had the evidence after we’d dug out the box!”

 

Neal stared. “You thought I’d – we’d – changed it?”

 

“What else was I to think?” James glared at him, his temper rising when he remembered how horrified he had been. “Tell me that didn’t happen!”

 

“That didn’t happen!” Neal told him.

 

“And Mozzie?”

 

“I did take the papers out of the box and replaced them with postcards, James. I thought you might run off with the documents Neal had been looking for much of his adult life…I couldn’t risk it! But I turned over exactly what I found to Neal, who sent it to his studio.”

 

“I told you neither of them would do it, James,” Ellen said, sadly.

 

“I still have no proof…of course you trust him, Ellen, he was like a child to you! You had him far more years than I – but all I knew - all I know now! - was he was thicker than thieves with his handler, chose to believe, or pretend to believe that I had murdered Pratt and should turn myself in to save Burke - but I didn’t know if any of that was true! I didn’t – don’t know to this day that _Burke_ is clean! He seems so smug and dumb, it almost has to be a cover!”

James took a bite of cake and a gulp of tea, trying to calm his temper. Then he went on, talking to Ellen, though she’d obviously heard this before, “I was just standing there listening to him speak to someone on the phone! How was I to know who that was, or if he’d been turned? For heaven’s sake, _I_ was! Oh, not to the depths of depravity others were, but I helped those bastards.

         “And all I knew was the evidence had been switched out, leaving proof that I was a murderer. And him – my son! – standing there trying to make me wait! To turn my self in - for what! To get framed by that evidence? To be arrested, or shot, like you, Ellen? Killed like Flynn in custody? How could he want me to do that!”

 

“I just didn’t want Burke to go down for murder for you…” Neal just stopped himself calling the man ‘dad’ again, and James saw it, and his expression lightened a miniscule amount.

 

But then it hardened. He said, “Look, I still don’t know what happened. I do not know who changed the evidence. I don’t even know who you work for or why you are here!”

 

“We don’t work for anyone!” Neal exclaimed. “Well – I do tours, but not in Paris! We did not change your evidence. I – I don’t know how to convince you!

         “And why did you say you’d got the details muddled…? That was such a weak story!”

 

“I was standing there, my mind going a thousand miles a minute, trying to work out what had happened to the evidence, who might be coming for me, whose side you were really on, was it you, was it Mozzie, was it Burke, someone else working for Burke – ? I was just trying to keep you talking and make my way closer to the door, get away and come to protect Ellen…I did not trust you, though I wanted to, but - ”

James sat for a moment and there was complete silence. “My first priority is Ellen. Was then, is now. I can’t be absolutely sure of either of you. So if you have guns, or backup, now’s the time to pull that trick! Otherwise, please leave.”

 

“James!” Ellen exclaimed. “No!”

 

“Yes, and we’ll move. Just be glad I don’t take them both out, just to be sure, Tilly.”

 

“Well, that’s a way to make your son trust you!” Mozzie said, getting angry on Neal’s behalf. “And make him believe you’re not a murderer!”

 

“Actually, Mozzie, that is _exactly_ the right attitude,” Neal said with a small laugh. “If what …he…says is true, he has no reason to trust us, and no way to prove us. I never realised that we could have swopped the evidence. He’s right. It was an obvious conclusion to jump to, since the stuff was taken out of the box.

         “Leaving is what he should do, to protect Ellen.”

 

James lifted his head and studied Neal keenly. “Wow. Kathryn said you were good.”

 

Mozzie groaned, but Neal grinned. “Oh, I know you’ll just think that’s a con. It’s what _I_ would think! And for my money, your best bet is to tie us up and shove us in a basement somewhere and then if you manage to get away because we don’t have guns and we don’t have backup – which we don’t, by the way – you phone someone and have us freed.

         “If you aren’t a murderer. Otherwise, leave us to starve, or shoot us. So we can’t tell anyone, ever, that you and Ellen are alive and together. You don’t need to let her know. That’s your safest bet.”

 

“Neal, what is wrong with you! I don’t want to be tied up for many hours, and we were going home for Christmas!” Mozzie griped.

 

“Far worse, the authorities may ask awkward questions about who we are, Moz, if he leaves us alive. But that’s what he should do to protect Ellen.” Neal looked at Mozzie and shrugged. “Well, _you’re_ all right, I guess. My position is a little more…equivocal. If they run my prints, I’m done for. There'll be a big hoo-hah, and if the Pink Panthers' people still want me...”

 

They all looked at each other again.

 

Ellen said, “I’d risk my life on you, James, and I‘d risk my life on Neal. And probably Mozzie by association!”

 

“Yes, dear,” James said to her, drily, “but you never thought _I_ was dirty, and I _was_ – I was taking money.”

 

“I know, James. But you tried to put it right. And you’ve been here for me and looked after me with no thought of reward for all this time.”

 

“Yes…well, yes,” James answered, thoughtfully. “That’s true. But you aren’t the most wonderful judge of character, I tricked you for ages way back, and we still have no way of knowing if these two have been turned, or are working with the bad guys, or even thinking they are doing the right thing and working with, say, Burke if he’s ‘good’, and leading the bad guys right to us. We don’t know he’s dead.” He nodded towards Neal.

 

“These bad guys, or backup or whatever we are working with must be stuck in a snowdrift two inches deep, or our coms are down, or they got lost when we took a sudden right turn,” Mozzie told him. “We’ve been in here quite a while, and if we were wired they’d have you dead-to-rights and would have burst in here by now. If we had guns, we’d have pulled them by now. I could have put drugs in the tea. How many more ways can you think of…we really are just on holiday in Paris.

         “We didn’t see Ellen, we saw a woman in a wheelchair all alone and wanted to make sure she got home safely, and wouldn’t have even met her if her chair hadn’t got stuck. Now if Neal thinks she did that by some clever device, good luck to him, I want to see him repeat that trick! If _you_ had a gun, you’d have pulled it by now. So can’t we all just stop being suspicious of each other?”

 

The other three just looked at Mozzie, and Neal started to grin. “Amazing how clearly the brain works when he doesn’t want to be tied up in a basement!”

 

They all thought hard, trying to find a chink in Mozzie’s reasoning. After a few long minutes, Neal looked up at his father. “You…you really are innocent?”

 

“Yes, son – of any murder. I did shoot Pratt in self-defence. I did take money and that was wrong. But I certainly paid a high price for that!

         “And you didn’t change the evidence?”

 

Neal’s eyes glistened. “If I could have, I probably would have changed the evidence to prove you innocent when I found the real stuff – the stuff I did find, I mean! I have always wanted to believe in you.”

 

“Thank you. Bad enough that I took bribes, but I am no murderer.”

 

“I believe you. Ellen would never lie about that, about you looking after her.”

 

“You are waa-aay too trusting, actually, Neal,” Mozzie warned him. “These two could be in cahoots and fooling both of us…except for the gun thing. Ellen could have gone ahead of us and tried to lure us in here, and we fell for it.”

 

“I thought you were trying to get us all to trust each other!” James said, confused and annoyed.

 

“Yes, yes – but I’m trying to train Neal not to be so gullible! Probably a lost cause, now! But the gun thing – we don’t like guns, though we can both use them well when necessary. You have to know that. You would not have lured us here without knowing what you were facing, and if there had been any doubt you could easily have knocked us both out before we even realised you were in the place!”

 

“Or _I_ could have made the tea and drugged or poisoned _you_ ,” James agreed, getting into the spirit of the thing, amused by the way Mozzie reasoned.

 

“Exactly. Or Ellen could be perfectly healthy and have some evil weapon hidden under that blanket. Or you could both have just pulled a gun on us – both of you were cops, we know you are not adverse to using guns, especially you, James.

         “Since none of us did any of the things that would have been logical if we were bad, we must assume we are not bad…or we’re running a long con, and I suppose there are reasons we could be doing that…”

 

“Well, that’s easy!” Neal joined in. “We’re working for the bad cop brigade, and they think there might be a copy of the evidence… though why these two wouldn’t have used it before now I can’t think… and so we were sent in to try and gain their trust, Moz, so we can get the copy of the evidence and hand it over to be destroyed, and then they, James and Ellen – and probably us – would be eliminated.”

 

“I was right – we’ll just tie them up and leave, Ellen!” James said, eyeing his son in horror. “Talk about smoke and mirrors! This is like a dry-ice manufacturer exploded next to a whole hall of mirrors – those distorting ones the fun fairs used to have!”

 

“Now that’s actually a reasonable scenario, Neal,” Mozzie said. “But there is a flaw…if we believe James, because he’s looked after Ellen, and _you_ trust _her_ \- we don’t need to see the evidence at all!”

 

James sat back with a relieved sigh. “That’s also true.”

 

“So you have no wish to see the evidence, ever, proving your father is innocent?” Ellen demanded of Neal.

 

“I would _like_ to see it. Especially to try and see who was manipulating everything back in the US, because it can’t have just been Pratt and Calloway.

         “But I can understand if you don’t want to show us, considering the dangers and implications!”

 

“No, there’s lots more and the ones who have reached higher echelons of power have been recruiting. We don’t know everyone involved, of that we’re sure,” James said.

 

“So why _didn’t_ you use the evidence against them?” Neal asked. “Why didn’t you go public.”

 

“Public…can’t just go to the press with this, Neal,” James said. “It would damage the public’s trust in all law enforcement, and there are still more good cops than bad cops, after all. And we didn’t know whom we could trust within the system. Still don’t. Believe me, Ellen and I have talked this through six ways till Sunday.”

 

“So each of us has ceased to believe that any of the others is bluffing?” Mozzie demanded.

 

“Yes,” the other three said.

 

“And you, as the most paranoid, Mozzie?” Neal asked.

 

“I never trusted James, you know, there were too many questions, Neal. But on the other hand, I would never have given myself up to save the Suit who blundered in, as usual, and got himself arrested, so I wasn’t as shocked by him leaving as you were.

         “And Ellen is here, and free, if he was bad why not just let her die, and run himself? He was only putting himself in great danger helping her to get out of the country and continually thereafter. A bad man does not do that.”

 

“Why burden himself with a cripple for years and years if he’s bad, is that what you mean?" Ellen grinned suddenly, and both James and Neal exclaimed, “ _No!”_ , making her laugh, they looked and sounded so alike.

 

‘Therefore, I conclude that, at least at first analysis, your father is a good man, Neal.”

 

Neal looked over, blue eyes into blue, and nodded. “Sorry, Dad. I trusted evidence. I just thought…I didn’t stop… I was hurt, and then Peter being arrested…”

 

“I couldn’t easily trust you, either, Neal,” James answered, “when I met you. I’d left a little boy and met a man. Other than the blue eyes…”

 

“…and the extraordinary good looks!” Neal grinned and James responded, and their grins were so similar that Ellen and Mozzie glanced at each other and shook their heads.

 

“Yeah,” James acknowledged, “that too – but I didn’t even know for sure if you were my son, or a plant by the bad guys, picked to look like me. I had your DNA run before you ran mine.” They all laughed. James went on, “Your handler did not help, other than making me wonder if you were clean because he was such a bumbler!” He made an impatient gesture.

 

“How have you been managing, financially?” Neal asked, after a pause.

 

“We’re all right!” James said, reactively.

 

Mozzie leaned forward and expanded, “Neal is asking if you are both all right financially, James, because he is concerned for Ellen as well as you. And because we can help. And since we are all convinced that at least you two are father and son by blood, double-tested DNA, it would be foolish pride to turn down an offer if it could help your friend.”

 

James looked at him. “Yeah. Sorry. Not in me – by birth or training! – to accept help.” He cleared his throat and Ellen watched him fondly. “Yeah, we could use some help. This place is cold and damp at times, and we can’t afford better accommodations.”

 

Ellen added. “If you truly are able to help, I would be glad of some assistance. I have only one lung, and the damp is hard.”

 

Neal smiled at them, subtle lines Mozzie hadn’t seen falling from his face as he acknowledged their bonds. “I think we can help! Now – are you happy in Paris?”

 

 

 

Without regret, James and Ellen turned their backs on their little place and took the few belongings they loved and went with Neal and Mozzie to Italy.

 

“You’re sure, Neal?” Mozzie had asked, concerned. “You really are sure about James?”

 

“Do you want to start that whole logical argument again, Moz? If he gives us any trouble, we leave. He’s been good at hiding, but we’re great at running!”

 

“You really are happy, aren’t you?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Because he’s good, your father?”

 

“Oh, I am glad about that. We’re both criminals, but not violent.

         “I think I’m really happy because it doesn’t matter to me any more. He said it to me once, you know – I’m not him. My life is not predicated on his. He wants his record set straight. I couldn’t care less. Unless the bad cops are after _me_ , I’m not that desperate to get them exposed, especially as it sounds like the sort of thing that can suck one down like quicksand.”

 

“But both of you put yourself in danger to help your friends.”

 

“Yes. I’m still getting used to finding them there, together.”

 

“And governments are bad enough without more corruption from more secret cabals.”

 

Neal grinned. “Agreed. If we can think of a way of helping him, we will…but if it were me, I’d merely find a beach – or whatever – and forget them all. I can’t change the world, I couldn’t even get one man to see me for who I really was after years of trying. No – I do what is good for me and those I care about if they want what I can give them.”

 

“I wanted to help some orphanages…”

 

“Now that’s a good idea! Can you handle the finances?”

 

“Of course. Mr Jeffreys is going to retire, he knows someone who can take over, but no-one can live on what he’s been scraping by on all these years.”

 

“You said we were using very little – set Mr Jeffreys up, let’s set James up and Ellen up – get some help for her, and do something for the orphanages of Detroit.”

 

“Thanks, Neal.”

 

“Don’t thank me! Most of our wealth was your doing!”

 

 

 

Once James and Ellen were settled, the four got together in their little house which the previous owner had rigged out very nicely for complete wheelchair access. Ellen looked twenty years younger, gardening in the raised beds, planting tomatoes, salads, squashes. James watched her fondly from the kitchen where he and Neal were shucking peas for dinner.

“Thank you, Kenneth,” he said, sincerely. “I couldn’t give her much of a life.”

 

“And without you, Dad, she wouldn’t have a life at all! Combined effort.”

 

There was a silence as they watched Mozzie handing Ellen her tools and the one glove that she’d dropped. Then Neal asked, “Anything between you two, ever?”

 

James turned and smiled. “Me and…Tilly? We’ve been pretending to be husband and wife for years, good cover, you know. But I am the husband of one wife, Neal. Not that I don’t love Ellen, just not that way.”

 

When they were seated round the dinner table, later, Neal said, “There is one man I think you could talk to in the USA. Someone I trust. If you want to go ahead with trying to eradicate the corrupt cops and all their allies.”

 

“Remembering, as Neal pointed out, that you might be throwing a grenade into a cache of explosives!” Mozzie warned. “There are people’s lives at stake, anyone who tries to help, and yours.”

 

“We can try and keep you out of it,” Neal said, looking at them. “In fact, I rather think I must insist on that!”

 

 

 

 

The air was getting just a little crisp. Reece Hughes was watching the sun set between the tall trees, black as coal against the sky. He had a good view from his chair, and his shotgun was with him, as usual.

 

When the chill intensified, the tall, lanky form rose and went inside, locking the only door he had unlocked, the one right by his chair. He started the fire, and pulled the stew over onto the stove-top to warm. The air in the cabin immediately felt more welcoming and comfortable, even though the thermometer would not have registered any difference.

 

He made sure of all the windows and doors, and that all the curtains were closed so that no light escaped, no-one could see in. He ate and settled in with a book, tight in the most protected corner of the room, the stone breast of the chimney to his one side and a large heavy chest of drawers behind him. He’d read them all, of course, but he’d brought books that were already old friends and he didn’t mind visiting with them, even if they retold the same jokes!

 

He looked up. Standing on the other side of the room in silence was a shortish man with a coat, hat and glasses, just looking at him…wasn’t that…?

 

“Haversham,” he said, pegging the memory. “Neal Caffrey’s friend.”

 

“Yes, Hughes, I am he.”

 

“How did you get in?” Reece wondered if he were dreaming. Shouldn’t he be concerned that his security had all been breached?

 

“Can I sit?”

 

“Do. Brandy?”

 

“Wine?”

 

“Sorry. Coffee?”

 

“Black?”

 

“Mmm.”

 

Haversham sighed. “Thank you. That would be nice. Nippy out.”

 

When they were sitting opposite each other, both with fingers laced around chipped mugs, Hughes said, “I’m sorry about Neal. Heard about that. Evil bastards.”

 

“Yes…um, about that…”

 

Hughes looked up sharply. Mozzie shrugged. “The report of his death was an exaggeration.”

 

“The misquotation is more catchy.”

 

“Yes. Had I been Samuel Clemens, I would have gone with it and said my original statement had been misremembered!”

 

They grinned at each other, acknowledging in each other strength, intelligence and endurance. They both had to read people quickly and accurately.

 

“I am very glad. He was – he was very valuable to us. I always wish I’d told him that more often.”

 

“Yes.” Mozzie didn’t elaborate.

 

“Is he in trouble?” Hughes sat forward, and Mozzie saw the sharp eagerness, and smiled.

 

“No, Hughes. He is fine. He wishes you everything of the best and also apologies for this intrusion on what may, for all he knew, be a happy retirement. He has many good things to say of you.

         “But you are not fine, I think, and neither is the moral fabric of much of the government and law enforcement. I believe that is why you are here, careful and cautious inside your wooden fortress.”

 

Hughes’ already thin, if shapely lips, thinned to invisibility. “Yes. But I can do nothing, Haversham. I tried. I was ignorant.”

 

“Gullible. So few people can see the dangers. People dismiss a group of thugs as a delusion of a conspiracy. ‘Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man’.”

 

“Now, now – I can’t have you quoting Nietzsche at me!” Hughes said with amusement in his dry, gravelly voice. “I believe they now say he died of brain cancer! And I am a good Presbyterian, so the views of an avowed atheist – with a brain likely in less-than-optimum health - hold no sway!”

 

Mozzie sat a little straighter, delighted. Then he sighed, remembering his urgent mission. “Perhaps later we can enjoy each other’s company further, Hughes. Neal told us to trust you. That you had integrity and wiles beyond even the superior man.”

 

Hughes sat back. “What does Neal want, exactly, from this superior man…and I am assuming you are misquoting Confucius, now?”

 

“It is not what Neal wants, exactly,” Mozzie shrugged. “You were pushed out so that Calloway could further Senator Pratt’s agenda. That did not work out well for him.”

 

“Good thing. Don’t hold with shooting men down, but we should first have proof that they are, indeed, men! He was going to do terrible things with his power….If you want an apt quote: ‘Power is always dangerous. It attracts the worst and corrupts the best.’”

 

“Abbey. Sadly true.

         “Are you willing, Hughes - ?”

 

“Call me Reece.”

 

“Mozzie then – are you willing to do anything about this cancer that spreads not just in Nietzsche’s brain but within the halls of power?”

 

“I would, but I cannot.”

 

“If you had hard evidence?”

 

Hughes sat forward so fast that his chair groaned in protest. “You have this?”

 

“At great cost to good people,” Mozzie said, gesturing to the bag he’d set by the wall. “Neal asked if you could access the Attorney General; if you trust him. It is a spider web…it will not bring down one man with many supporters within the system, but if put before a good mind, the pattern is easy to see, and what hard evidence there is, mostly of illegal financial dealings, will pull down the whole edifice. We took the basic facts collected, and then recently accessed financial records to prove crime at the highest levels, conspiracy to commit the most atrocious felonies and escape conviction. You probably should say that you received this all from an anonymous source – which I am, near as anything.”

 

“Wow!” said Hughes, of a sudden like a little boy at Christmas, and for a split second, Mozzie saw that bright-eyed lad hiding cleverly behind the mask of the white-haired, gaunt-faced man.

 

“I must warn you, Reece, and again, Nietzsche seems apt…’Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back at you.’”

 

“I accept your silly atheist abyss and raise you: ‘Resist the devil and he will flee from you!’” He rose with surprising majesty.

 

Mozzie looked at the man, now standing tall and straight before him, and thought that well he might!

 

 

In the morning light, Hughes was not surprised to find the strange man gone. He would not have been altogether surprised if the amazing collection of evidence had not disappeared with him: they had drunk a goodly amount of coffee, much of it laced with Don Pedro as the evening wore on and the clash of quotations grew fiercer, amidst the laying out of the case against some of the most powerful people in New York and the Eastern States on the floor of the isolated little cabin, though the cancer had metastasised to several important states about the rest of the country.

Hughes stood straight and hurried to shave, careful to be as neat as he ever was on the job, put on a fresh, ironed shirt and a leather jacket. His heart beat strongly. He sniffed the cool breeze like a shrewd old wolf seeking prey. He took out the burner phone that his new friend had given him and dialled a number he’d been given.

 

“Diana? Hughes. Are you up for a protection detail, and who else can you recommend? I need five, six good men – or women….

            “Soon as possible….

            “Good. Yes. I want to see the Attorney General of the United States, and I want to do it alive!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

End of Dead or Alive

 

 

I have chatted with many people on AO3 about that evidence box! I wanted to write a fiction, and Ethel09 and I spoke about it further...thanks to her for some ideas, though she wrote a story also, and they couldn't be more different and with more different outcomes. Read both, decide which you like! Hers is http://archiveofourown.org/works/3801892 

She doesn't like some characters I love and have become apologist for...you'll see!

I think we both explained better than the canon writers, and before you say, 'easily done', we agree with you!

 

 

And yes, please - comments, comments! These were a lot of work, trying to patch holes in this moth-eaten fabric! And if you can see a wrongly placed patch, or disagree, or feel I haven't explained, please say so - but at least have something to offer! (Note typo's and awful spelling, too!)

 

 


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